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What it all a dream?
brettgallaher - wrote on 08/23/10
(Spoiler Alert)
Okay, if you have seen Inception you probably have a few theories about the ending (or for that matter, the entire plot). From what I've read online, the major debate is whether or not Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) was dreaming at the end of the movie. He spins the top (which supposedly will not topple if he's dreaming) but the camera cuts away before you know what happens. Most opinions I've come across say he was dreaming. Here are their main reasons...
1). His kids never age.
2). You can't get out of Limbo.
3). His subconscious projections (the train, his kids, and Mal) are the only ones that infiltrate the dreams. The rest of the team brings in none of their own mental baggage. This suggests it is always inside of Cobbs mind and no one else.
4). Once the "kicks" set in, the line was cut and Cobb would have been trapped in Limbo. Even if he got out of Limbo and rode the kicks back up some other way, his avatar from the 1st dream would have drowned in the river.
Now, let me say this. I do not think there is a REAL answer. That's the genius of what Christopher Nolan is doing. It's supposed to keep you thinking, questioning, etc.. He's planted the same idea in our minds that Cobb placed in Mal's... that none of this story may be real.
However, I do believe some of the logic used to "prove" he was dreaming is flawed. In the same way faith is not proved or disproved by evidence, neither is the faith in Cobb's reality so easily explained away. It is obvious that faith plays a large role in the overall framework Nolan is expressing, for example:
a). Saito offers Cobb the ability to go home (to his kids in America) if he can carry out Inception. Cobb says he needs a guarantee from Saito that he can deliver on the promise. Saito asks Cobb if he'd rather grow to be an old man alone and filled with regret, than to take a leap of faith.
b). Cobb asks Mal to take a leap of faith when they are in Limbo, by putting their heads on the train tracks and trusting they'd wake up together.
c). Mal asks Cobb to take a leap of faith out of the window (to kill themselves again) so that they could wake back up (or so Mal believed) in the "real world" (Limbo). She jumps, he does not.
d). Saito goes to Limbo when he dies in the 3rd dream level. Cobb finds him there and they both remember their words (finishing each others' sentences) that they would go back and become young men again (not old and filled with regret) by taking a "leap of faith" that their world (Limbo) was not real. It then shows Saito reach for a gun, as if they killed each other to wake back up.
Even here there is huuuuuuuuge potential for philosophical debate. Was Saito a projection of Cobb's subconscious urging him to live by faith and not live in regret for not doing so? Was Mal's suicide a projection of Cobb's regret of not taking leaps of faith and therefore a projection of his regret? Anyway, that's another discussion.
I'll now address the "evidence" he was dreaming.
1). His kids do not appear to age. This is legitimate. However, the movie never tells how long Cobb has been running from the authorities. That would be critical information. Let's just say he was gone 9 months? Would his kids be noticeably older? Eh... hard to say. And also, Nolan isn't getting bogged down in the specifics of the ages of the children so much as he is stressing the last memory Cobb has of them. This movie is based in a dream mentality. That changes the tone and emphasis for everything.
2). Can you get out of Limbo? I've read reviews saying that there is no way out, and when he put his head on that train track that he just messed himself up even worse, putting himself into a deeper stage (i.e. non-existence, permanent Limbo or Purgatory).
What?
First of all... who is the best source of information for how the physics of Limbo would work? Let's see. This is a film (not actual reality) so we must get our physics from... um... oh yeah... THE FILM! Cobb is the only one that we encounter from the movie who has been to Limbo (until Saito eventually goes later). He is our only source. Cobb never says you can't get out of Limbo in general. He just says if you're heavily sedated and die in the deam, you will go to Limbo instead of waking up. And let's not forget. If this is Cobb has already escaped Limbo once already (according to the plot given).
Granted, this gets confusing. But it only suggests you are stuck in Limbo because of your body being sedated. If you're unable to wake up (due to the sedative) you are therefore stuck in Limbo. And if you're stuck in Limbo for ANY amount of time while you're sedated, that amount of time is compounded. For example: You die in a dream, you can't wake up, you go to Limbo, your body is sedated for 10 hours, you experience decades of time passing in Limbo waiting for your body to snap out of the sedative, your brain is so messed up you can't get back because you've lost sense of reality.
3). While it is quite suspicious that Cobb's subconscious projections are the only ones wreaking havoc and sabotaging mission, again... we must go back to our ONLY source for how the physics of dream sharing works... THE FILM! Cobb is the source of this information. He says that the architect builds the dream and the dreamer populates the dream with his/her subconscious. This formula alone would suggest it is always Cobb who is the dreamer since Mal/the train/his kids end up messing with all his dreams. However, two things are important to remember.
First, Ariadne asks why it is important the architect does not divulge the details of the dream structure and Cobb says (paraphrasing) "So that none of the team members' sub-consciousnesses would bring in anything dangerous."(The movie hasn't been out long enough to get all the quotes exact, but I've seen it twice and I was listening for that discussion). Ariadne immediately asks him if he's referring to what Mal has done in his dreams and if that is why he does not design his own dreams. While Cobb is obviously worried about his own subconscious, he explains the situation in a way that suggests others could potentially bring in other mental baggage as well.
Secondly (and just in-case you think the first explanation can be explained away as Cobb just lying to Ariadne), it is important to remember that the team is involved in SHARED dreaming. If it were only two people (the architect and the dreamer) then it would be feasible to argue that the dreamer is the only one who populates the dream with his/her subconscious (and it appears that the film maintains that this is mostly what is going on) but Cobb and Mal were sharing dreams and when they went to Limbo they were BOTH building an entire world down there (as Cobb says multiple times). There seems to be a way of creating/discovering regardless of who the dreamer is. Everyone who is sharing the dream has a way of bringing something to it.
4). After the kicks started coming, the line was cut? After Fischer is shot, Cobb seems to concede that the mission has failed (since Fischer's mind was now in Limbo), but Ariadne convinces him (very quickly) that Fischer can be given a "kick" from within Limbo to wake him up inside the 3rd dream. This should serve as instant rebuttle to all who say it's impossible to get out of Limbo. And while Fischer did get kicked out from Limbo and had to ride the rest of the kicks up thru the rest of the dreams, this is evidently not the only way to get out of Limbo since Cobb and Mal wake up instantly after the train track incident. There were no other kicks required.
While these points do not prove that Cobb was finally awake in the real world by the end of the film, it does show that the plot as was presented in to film was a plausible one. I think getting tied up on the physics of dreaming misses the point entirely. THIS IS A MOVIE. The rules are different. Of course trying to go to sleep again, once you're already dreaming, makes no sense (since the dream equipment they were using to share the dream would just be their imaginations constructing "dream"-dream equipment when they attempt to use it from within the dream). It would all be inside of the first dream. There is no actual 2nd dream going on. But then again, that would be getting hung up on dream physics as WE define them. This is a movie. The movie can make the physics whatever it wants. And that's a lot more fun actually.
So, was he dreaming as the end? I like to think it was real. But if it wasn't real, I see Cobb's faith as what saved him from his own regrets, bringing him to the place where he could finally be at peace (home? heaven?).
I've said enough for now. I encourage you to watch the film more than once. You'll see so much more the second go around.
